There are a great number of people who rely on drug delivery devices. One form or type of a drug delivery device is a hand held injection device that a person can use to inject himself or herself with medicine, or a person can use to inject a another person having a medical emergency with medicine. The hand held injection device holds medicine and has a needle for delivering the medicine to the patient. Hand held drug delivery devices are oftentimes used to administer life saving medicines in emergency situations.
When a person is having an allergic reaction the person needs immediate medicine to prevent the person from dying. For example, some people have a condition known as anaphylaxis, meaning they have serious allergic reactions when exposed to different trigger materials, for example foods, medicine, venom from a bee sting, and so on. One of the treatments for a person in anaphylaxis shock due to a severe allergic reaction is an injection of epinephrine into the leg of the person.
Currently there are delivery devices to capable of delivering epinephrine to the person having a medical emergency, however the current delivery devices are extremely expensive and typically cost $500 dollars or more for a single dose of epinephrine. The costs for current injection devices are even more burdensome, because they must be disposed of and replaced every year to ensure the epinephrine in the delivery device is always fresh and medically effective.
Thus, what is need is an injection device that is capable of delivering effective doses of medicine such as epinephrine, while at the same time is easy to use, is inexpensive, may be reused, and can be mass produced at a low production cost.